Building collective resilience and the future of courts in a post pandemic world

Building collective resilience

Last Monday night, we were honoured to have Professor Ian Hickey AM deliver the Annual Charles Xuereb Oration. His address on “Navigating mental health in the COVID era” provided an absolute ‘lightbulb moment’ for me when he spoke about resilience. Rather than focusing on individual resilience, he believes resilience is better conceptualised as a group characteristic; a product of teamwork. Becoming resilient, he said, isn’t about becoming “bullet-proof.” It’s more about being embedded within a community; supporting others when they struggle and accepting help when we’re doing it tough. It’s a powerful but simple concept that has opened my mind to how we can be so much more effective in supporting mental health and wellbeing in our law firms and legal practices. I am grateful to Professor Hickie for delivering the oration (which can be viewed on demand here) and for his ongoing work in supporting our nation’s mental health and wellbeing. 

Future of Law and Innovation in the Profession (FLIP)

More than 600 members of the profession joined us online for last week’s 2021 FLIP Conference - the Law Society’s first immersive virtual 3D experience. The conference was an outstanding event showcasing the most significant trends, issues and emerging opportunities facing lawyers in Australia today. Global legal tech analyst, Jordan Furlong, opened the conference (from Canada) with his keynote on “How Legal Innovation Changes Everything About Accessible Justice”. Jordan challenged all of us, as members of the legal profession, to ensure that the law is known, that it is accessible, that solutions are real. As he said, “this is on all of us. We have to lead, follow or get out of the way.”

Other highlights included an enlightening session on the Law of Space delivered by the NSW Governor, her Excellency, the Hon Margaret Beazley AC QC. She had some sound advice for the current crop of space entrepreneurs when she noted that “depending on how high you go, there may be another legal industry based on ‘disappointed space travellers’ who find out that they have not ‘actually been to space’.” Our online panel discussion on the future of remote and online hearings also provided some important insights about the ongoing digitisation of our courts in a post pandemic world.  

With more than 50 speakers and 21 sessions across three streams running concurrently, it was impossible to watch all that was on offer. The good news is that all of the sessions from the 2021 FLIP Conference are now available on demand, on the Law Society’s website.

In wrapping up, I will leave you with some wise words from Nick Abrahams, the co-founder of LawPath, whose Closing Address summed up the conference perfectly when he said, “the future is bright, for the right kind of lawyer”.

Until next week, stay safe and stay well.

Juliana Warner, President, Law Society of NSW